


The Last Words

by Katrina_Linden



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Soulmarks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katrina_Linden/pseuds/Katrina_Linden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A soulmark is the last words you'll ever hear your soulmate say. Merlin and Arthur have two each.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Words

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this Tumblr post: Soulmate au where instead of your soulmates first words to you written on your skin it’s their last words you ever hear them say so you don’t know who your soulmate is until you lose them  
> http://aceofultron.tumblr.com/post/115638999945/soulmate-au-where-instead-of-your-soulmates-first

Merlin is seven when he sees the mark on his mother’s leg, the words  _‘Sleep well, Hunith’_  scrawled in black ink. She sits him down and explains to him how the soulmarks work. That those words were the last she ever heard Merlin’s father say; and doesn’t Merlin’s heart jump at that, knowing for a fact that his parents loved each other so much that magic marked them from the moment they reached adulthood.

He goes to bed that night, trembling in excitement, wondering who his soulmate will be.

____ 

He’s fifteen, gangly and starting to realise Ealdor is no place for a bastard sorcerer, when the marks begin to form.  _Marks_ \- two of them. He tries, at first to believe that they were continuations of the other. But they were too unalike, one elegant black ink, one scrawled in a bold blue. His mother shakes her head in confusion, admitting that she’d never heard of anyone having more than one mark. Then she holds him tight and pretends that she isn’t worried by her boy being so different in so many ways.

____

Arthur was raised to hate all forms of magic, and that included soulmarks, even if they were an evil that couldn’t be avoided. The prince had only seen his father’s soulmark once. He still, years later, found himself looking at the King’s sleeve, remembering the words;  _‘He’s beautiful’_ scrawled beneath in a simple, but neat hand. No one talked about it, but Arthur knew who Ygraine had been referring to. 

His own mark comes into being when he's thirteen. No-  _marks._ Arthur panics, scared that this somehow makes him more magic, more wrong, than everyone else. In the end, it was Morgana who found him, newly arrived at Camelot and essentially a stranger. Morgana who holds him in the empty chambers he hid in as he hyperventilated. She whispers that no scribbles on skin could define a person. That nothing, not even magic, could _make_ a person evil. 

Arthur remembers that time a lot years later, wondering if she was right or if she’d managed to prove herself wrong.

____

Years pass and Arthur gains a manservant while Merlin gains a destiny. Merlin stands by a lake as a boat burns in the water, scrubbing at his neck. He’d loved Freya, dearly, but neither of his marks said ‘I promise’. Knowing he’d feel pain like the one now lodged in his heart -or worse- twice more is hard, the walk back to Camelot weighed down with fear and loss.

He feels like he’d be stuck in the depression forever. Yet, somehow, with his head locked in Arthur’s arms, trying to pry the Prince off him, Merlin finds himself able to smile again.

____

He isn’t able to smile now, Arthur’s weight heavy atop him, the lake of Avalon so close yet so far. He pulls and strains, but his strength is not enough. Arthur usually would tease him for being so weak, such a girl.

Not now he isn’t. Now he’s telling Merlin to stop.

“I can’t. I’m not going to lose you.”

Merlin begs him not to say goodbye, but Arthur does anyway, in the way he does; without actually saying the words. “I want to say something I’ve never said to you before- thank you.”

Cold runs through the warlock’s veins, and rather than shock or surprise, his mind fills with a profound belief that this  _cannot_ be the last time he hears Arthur’s voice. “Stay with me,” he breathes. Arthur opens his eyes one last time, and there’s the flicker of a smile, that makes Merlin think that those words are etched onto Arthur’s skin somewhere.

“No!” He yells. “Arthur, no-” he pleads with Arthur, with fate and destiny and magic and whoever will listen as the King’s breathing stops. He calls Kilgarrah almost unconsciously, and presses his forehead to Arthur’s, praying for his eyes to open. 

____

Years pass with the promise that Arthur will rise again. Merlin spends centuries waiting. He doesn’t just wait, of course, but it feels like it sometimes. The mark on his thigh starts to fade in the nineteen-hundreds. Magic has faded and soul-marks are now a legend, like his own name. Merlin immediately gets the words tattooed onto his skin, ignoring the inquiring look when the artist sees the faded ‘ _thank you._ ’ 

Merlin traces the other mark on his collarbone, still bold and bright as ever, and waits.

____

It’s over.

Arthur rose, eventually. They did everything they needed to do, somehow. Despite having waited thousands of years, Merlin wasn’t the one who made the first move. It was Arthur who wasted no time, kissing him while still dripping wet and knee-deep in the lake.

That was years ago. They lie in each other’s arms, old and grey. The beeping of a heat monitor, quiet murmur of machines and the hospital outside the door are of no importance. Arthur traces his husband’s neck, down to the blue lines that the two share.

“Merlin,” he whispers, tired, restful and  _happy._

Merlin looks up, gentle smile on his face, all that ancient tiredness gone, replaced with peace. “Arthur,” he replies, and kisses the mark on Arthur’s wrist, tracing the name of the man he loves as Arthur does the same to him.

**Author's Note:**

> I got this out ridiculously quickly. I've never written a complete thing so quickly before. Hopefully it broke you as much as it did me to write.


End file.
